Manu helps Spurs get even

Updated 12:26 am, Thursday, April 21, 2011

Half an hour after he had helped deliver the Spurs the victory that might have saved their season, the man of the hour was loitering in a hallway at the AT&T Center, rocking his twin 11-month-old boys in a stroller.

Let the record show, after the Spurs evened their first-round series with Memphis with a 93-87 victory, Ginobili's sprained right elbow was not sore enough to excuse him from daddy duty.

Playing with a black-and-blue pad over the joint he'd injured a week earlier in Phoenix, Ginobili introduced himself to the series in Game 2, scoring 17 points, grabbing seven rebounds and generally refusing to let the Spurs lose a game they simply could not afford to.

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“Going back to Memphis down 2-0 was going to be really hard to overcome,” said Ginobili, who missed Game 1. “We brought some edge.”

Before the game, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich wondered how effective Ginobili might be, with one arm essentially tied behind his back. Early on, he had his answer.

Ginobili began the night as if on a kamikaze mission.

Thirty-three seconds in, he blocked Zach Randolph, sure to use his left hand. He got his first points after out-wrestling Marc Gasol for an offensive rebound and going to the foul line. He hit the ground for an MMA battle with Shane Battier and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Tony Allen.

Ginobili was just 5 of 13 from the field, and an uncharacteristic 7 of 13 from the foul line. Yet his mere presence gave the Spurs an emotional lift not found in any box score.

“If Manu's out there playing with one arm, doing things like that,” Gary Neal said, “it kind of makes it hard for the rest of us to do anything but that.”

Popovich, too, felt the Manu effect.

“Just to have him on the floor is a plus for the psyche of the whole team,” Popovich said. “On top of that, he played pretty well.”

By the second half, with Ginobili going all Spartacus on the Grizzlies, the game took on a gladiatorial feel. Would anyone have been surprised if Allen had ripped Ginobili's arm from his socket and waved the stump over his head?

Another Ginobili moment came in the third quarter, after Tim Duncan — who fouled out with 16 points and 10 rebounds — missed a 13-footer. Battier grabbed the rebound and dished ahead to Mike Conley to ignite a break.

Standing in the way, at halfcourt, was Ginobili, who shoplifted the ball from Conley and took it for an uncontested dunk, part of an 11-0 Spurs run.

“Manu is Manu,” Battier marveled. “He could be in a full body cast, and he's going to make plays.”

Memphis led for most of the first half, and into the second, and hung within 66-65 entering the fourth.

Unlike in Game 1, which the Spurs also led heading to the final frame, they locked down the victory. Richard Jefferson, who had 16 points, hit a 3-pointer to give the Spurs a six-point cushion with 3:40 to go, and George Hill finished with four perfect free throws to seal the win.

Still, the Grizzlies left San Antonio with what they wanted. They'd forged a split on the Spurs' home floor, and they'd earned a batch of playoff experience to take back to Memphis for Game 3.

In Game 2, the Spurs bottled up Randolph to the tune of 11 points and five rebounds, held the Grizzlies to 39.8-percent shooting, got their emotional leader back —— and still had to grind out a narrow victory.

Now, the series seems different, because the Spurs have Ginobili.

Early in the first quarter Wednesday, after one of the dozen or so times Ginobili found himself on the AT&T Center hardwood, Duncan ran over to help him up.